Maybe I should demand a salary.
I wasn’t too worried about the marriage’s consummation. After how easily he aroused me in the kitchen, I wanted him naked and in my arms like yesterday. It’s a pity Roxanne showed up when she did. I wanted to have him on me and in me, and without delay.
That man had mehot.
I wandered on, not truly thinking about the future as Mrs. Desjardin, but rather let my mind wander. Dusk wasn’t far away, and soon the stores would close for the night. Traffic would diminish, pedestrians would go home. Soon there’d be no one to give me the hairy eyeball for wearing non trendy leggings and a t-shirt on the downtown streets.
Time to go back.
I turned around at the next intersection, the arc sodium lights over my head now illuminating my path. I passed the sidewalk cafes that weren’t closing down just because darkness had arrived. Wishing I’d brought my bag and money with me, I glanced at the diners with envy. I hadn’t eaten since lunch, and I was hungry.
Maybe Alaric will offer me a substantial amount of money for my cooperation in this marriage farce.
Lost in my day dream of having a fat bank account, I crossed yet another intersection, the stop light above my head bathing me in a reddish haze. A car, traveling in the same direction I walked, pulled to a stop beside me. I paid it no attention. Vehicles were always parked along the street.
“Stupid bitch.”
The harsh voice spoke from behind me at the same time strong hands grabbed my shoulders. They spun me around. Confused, I looked up into a familiar and terrifying face.
Brad.
Perhaps the vodka was to blame for my lack of instinctive self-preservation. Or maybe I’d have stared, stunned into non comprehension without the vodka’s help, into Brad’s furious, malicious, eyes. Either way, I stood still while Brad punched me hard in my stomach.
Breathless, pain cascading in waves through my belly to my back and beyond, I doubled over. Brad seized a handful ofmy hair and dragged me to the car. He opened the rear door while I fought to regain both my breath and my ability to fight back, then shoved me inside.
“Get your ass in there,” he snarled as I fell helplessly onto the nasty upholstery.
I heard him slam the door closed. I worked to get up, to throw myself out of the car before he rounded the front end. I struggled to simply breathe while he got into the front, and put the car in drive. By the time I managed to simply sit up, Brad had jacked the car’s speed up to a dangerously high level.
Too fast for me to jump out and survive.
“Thought you escaped me, huh?”
My belly muscles felt as if they’d burst their seams and flooded my abdominal wall with hot blood. My lungs finally accepted a trickle of air, helping me gain enough strength to look at him. Brad’s blue eyes danced with demonic good cheer under the thick fall of his russet hair. He smiled as those eyes met mine in the rear view mirror.
“I’ve been watching you, baby,” he said. “Going to your job like a good little worker bee.”
Crap.I’d hoped he’d have blown me off by now, and found another girl to screw. I never saw him following me, nor noticed anything unusual as I rode the bus to the office. His rusted beater sedan should have stood out like an old wooden outhouse amid a field of brilliant tulips in Roxanne’s upper crust neighborhood.
I covered my sore stomach with my arms and bent over, working to breathe.
“You hurl in my car, and I’ll beat you senseless.”
“I’m not gonna hurl.”
Despite knowing Brad might easily beat me senseless without my hurling, I strangely felt unafraid. Only weary. Istraightened up and rested the back of my head against the seat’s rest. I shut my eyes. “What do you want, Brad?”
“You’re moving back in with me, baby,” he answered. “And you’ll never leave again.”
Should I inform him I’m engaged? Or almost engaged?I chuckled weakly, thinking of his outrage if I told him. “I won’t move back in with you. Get over yourself already.”
“Bitch,” he snarled, “you’ll do what I say.”
He rocketed the sedan around a corner, the tires squealing. I flopped bonelessly on my side, and lay there, breathing in the noxious stench of the upholstery. I let my mind wander to Alaric, wondering what he’d do when I didn’t show up for work in the morning.
He’ll come looking for me. His inheritance is far too important to let his prospective bride escape him.
“Just drop me off at Roxanne’s,” I muttered. “Thanks for the ride.”
